COVID is just like the flu.

[Rigby5]

So we could have easily have achieved herd immunity and wiped out the virus last March if we had wanted to.

By infecting massive swaths of the population, you generate more viral mutations and therefore much higher likelihood of generating variants that people aren’t immune to.

Wrong.
First of all, they are not mutations, because mutations mean random damage, like from radiation.
Variants already exist, but are merely changing in % due to natural selection of evolution.
And the whole point of why "fattening the curve" is such a bad idea is that it deliberately gives the virus more TIME.
And it is TIME that caused more variations to become more deadly or resistant to antibodies.
The faster you get any epidemic over, the less likely it will have a chance to evolve into a worse strain, and the fewer total deaths you will have.

Hmm, what promotes more natural selection and evolution than many, many, many infections?

Wrong.
If you deliberately infect, then YOU get to decide which variant to infect with, so there is absolutely no natural selection or evolution involved, at all.
Natural selection and evolution do not at all get effected by the number of infections, but only by the length of time the infection process is allowed to run its course.
The quicker you achieve the herd immunity rate of 70%, then less natural selection and evolution.
And by the way, the Amish in Ohio and Pennsylvania have proven Fauci wrong, and have achieved herd immunity with the high death total he predicted.

Has This Amish Group Reached Herd Immunity?

About 90% of families in the community reportedly had family members infected with COVID-19.

www.ibtimes.com

{...
health official estimated that about 90% of the families in an Amish community in Pennsylvania had been affected by the coronavirus. Does this mean they have already reached the coveted herd immunity?

In the race towards achieving herd immunity as COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out globally, an Amish community in Lancaster County's New Holland Borough reportedly had already crossed the mark. Allen Hoover, the administrator for the medical clinic that serves the community claimed so as at least one family member or 90% of the families is infected, according to the Associated Press (AP)

If true, this makes them the first community to achieve herd immunity in the U.S. ...}

 

[Rigby5]

Remember when that was one of the WH talking points in the early stages of the pandemic? No reason to panic. COVID will go away when the weather gets warm. It's all under control.

Turns out, they were wrong..........in too many ways to discuss. One of the more demonstrably provable things they were wrong about was the comparison to the flu.

We wiped out the flu this year. Could we do it again?

That's what happens to influenza type viruses when people wear masks and practice social distancing. Unfortunately, COVID is a highly transmissible virus. More so than the regular flu.

The point being the COVID protocols dismissed as ineffective, infringements on freedom, a waste of time by conservatives.........they work. And if we had not implemented them, if we had not locked down the economy for a while, the infection rate and death toll would be far worse than it is.

It turns out everyone was wrong about Covid. We heard something every day. The only consistent thing was be very afraid. A 99.7% survival rate is not a killer disease.

In the early stages of the epidemic in January and February, people were making educated and uneducated guesses because there was not enough good data. By April medical science had a good idea of what we were facing and how reduce the spread. It was the White House that was making claims that the virus would just go away by summer, by fall, and by election day. There was an election to be won and Covid-19 was a threat so it was downplayed which made preventing the spread more difficult.

Except slowing the infection spread rate is what prevents the epidemic from ending, and that eventually accumulated a much LARGER total death amount.
Herd immunity is what ends all epidemics normally, but herd immunity can't end any epidemic if you are "flattening the curve", and in effect conserving hosts for the virus to it can't die out.

 

[colfax_m]

Natural selection and evolution do not at all get effected by the number of infections, but only by the length of time the infection process is allowed to run its course.

Nonsense. Reproduction is necessary to evolution. It is the driving force.

More infections, more reproduction.

Do you have the vaguest idea what you’re talking about?

 

[Rigby5]

Natural selection and evolution do not at all get effected by the number of infections, but only by the length of time the infection process is allowed to run its course.

Nonsense. Reproduction is necessary to evolution. It is the driving force.

More infections, more reproduction.

Do you have the vaguest idea what you’re talking about?

Silly.

The number of infections is totally and completely irrelevant to evolution because they are in parallel.
Simultaneous reproductions in parallel only increase the number of 1st generation offspring.
They all happen at the same or similar time.
So no evolution can then occur.
Born about at the same time, they do not at all increase the number of serial reproductions over a long period of time, where natural selection could cause some recessive trait to become dominant at each generation.
Evolution is dependent upon many generations, NOT lots of identical members of a single generation.

Reproduction is NOT at all a driving force of evolution.
What is a driving force of evolution is natural selection over long time periods that allow for many, many generations.
That is why with humans we speak in terms of hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
Viruses evolve faster due to the short life span, but evolution still takes many years most often.
And the number of cases of infection does not at all effect the rate of evolution.
All that matters is the number of generations leading up to the creation of one specific virus.
In fact, evolution greatly speeds up when there are fewer member of the species, because then recessives have a greater chance of becoming dominant as the old dominant strain dies out.

 

[colfax_m]

Natural selection and evolution do not at all get effected by the number of infections, but only by the length of time the infection process is allowed to run its course.

Nonsense. Reproduction is necessary to evolution. It is the driving force.

More infections, more reproduction.

Do you have the vaguest idea what you’re talking about?

Silly.

The number of infections is totally and completely irrelevant to evolution because they are in parallel.
Simultaneous reproductions in parallel only increase the number of 1st generation offspring.
They all happen at the same or similar time.
So no evolution can then occur.
Born about at the same time, they do not at all increase the number of serial reproductions over a long period of time, where natural selection could cause some recessive trait to become dominant at each generation.
Evolution is dependent upon many generations, NOT lots of identical members of a single generation.

Reproduction is NOT at all a driving force of evolution.
What is a driving force of evolution is natural selection over long time periods that allow for many, many generations.
That is why with humans we speak in terms of hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
Viruses evolve faster due to the short life span, but evolution still takes many years most often.
And the number of cases of infection does not at all effect the rate of evolution.
All that matters is the number of generations leading up to the creation of one specific virus.
In fact, evolution greatly speeds up when there are fewer member of the species, because then recessives have a greater chance of becoming dominant as the old dominant strain dies out.

This is a lot of gibberish.

For starters, you can’t make everyone get COVID simultaneously. Not even close. You will get many more generations with an open “herd immunity” strategy. Everyone has to get the infection from someone else.

Evolution does not speed up with fewer members since there’s fewer mutations being generated. Fewer potential adaptations. Slower evolution.

The “nondominant” only needs potential hosts to become dominant and in a society where you plan on almost everyone getting infected, that’s a lot of potential hosts.

 

[Rigby5]

Natural selection and evolution do not at all get effected by the number of infections, but only by the length of time the infection process is allowed to run its course.

Nonsense. Reproduction is necessary to evolution. It is the driving force.

More infections, more reproduction.

Do you have the vaguest idea what you’re talking about?

Silly.

The number of infections is totally and completely irrelevant to evolution because they are in parallel.
Simultaneous reproductions in parallel only increase the number of 1st generation offspring.
They all happen at the same or similar time.
So no evolution can then occur.
Born about at the same time, they do not at all increase the number of serial reproductions over a long period of time, where natural selection could cause some recessive trait to become dominant at each generation.
Evolution is dependent upon many generations, NOT lots of identical members of a single generation.

Reproduction is NOT at all a driving force of evolution.
What is a driving force of evolution is natural selection over long time periods that allow for many, many generations.
That is why with humans we speak in terms of hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
Viruses evolve faster due to the short life span, but evolution still takes many years most often.
And the number of cases of infection does not at all effect the rate of evolution.
All that matters is the number of generations leading up to the creation of one specific virus.
In fact, evolution greatly speeds up when there are fewer member of the species, because then recessives have a greater chance of becoming dominant as the old dominant strain dies out.

This is a lot of gibberish.

For starters, you can’t make everyone get COVID simultaneously. Not even close. You will get many more generations with an open “herd immunity” strategy. Everyone has to get the infection from someone else.

Evolution does not speed up with fewer members since there’s fewer mutations being generated. Fewer potential adaptations. Slower evolution.

The “nondominant” only needs potential hosts to become dominant and in a society where you plan on almost everyone getting infected, that’s a lot of potential hosts.

That ridiculous.
First of all, it is easy to make a sufficient number of young volunteer all simultaneously get covid-19.
It is called variolation.
It is what preceded vaccination.
It is thousands of years old, and used in ancient Egypt, India, China, etc.

You wrote, "You will get many more generations with an open “herd immunity” strategy", and that is totally false.
With herd immunity you try to accelerate the rate at which people become immune, and that automatically reduces the number of generations. The faster you spread infection, the fewer generations. The more you "flatten the curve" to slow it down, the greater the number of generations.

Evolution is NOT driven by adaptations or have anything at all to do with adaptations.
Variations already exist, but the main strain will prevent the variants from succeeding in finding hosts.
So in order for variants to take over, you have to have something to slow down the dominant strain, so the variants have a chance.
You can NOT generate mutations in real time. Mutation are almost always nonviable and do not survive at all.
Variants are NOT produced on the fly, but already existed for hundreds if not thousands of years. What happens with evolution of different strains is that already existing ones that are more adapted to the new host, like humans, will eventually take over and the old original strain will die out. Variants and adaptation does not need volume because they always already exist. They require something to reduce the dominant strain, so they have a chance of finding hosts and reproducing.

You said, "in a society where you plan on almost everyone getting infected, that’s a lot of potential hosts", and that is totally ridiculous. Once people are infected, they no longer are capable of being hosts any more at all. If you get almost everyone infected, then all strains of any virus will totally and completely die out. That is how ALL epidemics are always ended, with herd immunity reducing the available hosts who are not immune.

 

[Lesh]

More infections, more reproduction.

And more mutations and more variants.'
'Rigby is a nutcase

 

[Rigby5]

More infections, more reproduction.

And more mutations and more variants.'
'Rigby is a nutcase

Totally wrong.
The faster you accelerate infections, the fewer variants become possible because there is no time.
And only a nutcase would be foolish enough to called different strains, "mutations".
Mutations are random events like radiation damage, and it would take hundreds of year before a new random mutation would actually even survive, much less be more successful.

A fast infection rate is all in parallel, with fewer generation than a slow infection rate that gives enough time for far more generations. And it is the number of generations that produces more variants, NOT the number of infections all happening at about the same time.

The more infections, the quicker you achieve herd immunity and the epidemic dies out entirely.
The fewer infections, you prevent herd immunity from ending it, so it drags on for many more generation, and then you have the maximum number of variants. More time means more variants.

 

[Lesh]

The faster you accelerate infections, the fewer variants become possible because there is no time.

As noted earlier.

Rigby is a nutcase

NO .... NONE ....reputable virologists agree with that nonsense

 

[colfax_m]

The faster you accelerate infections, the fewer variants become possible because there is no time.

It doesn’t need time. It needs replications and infections.

The faster you accelerate infections, the faster you accumulate variants.

In a lab, you can induce evolution and create variants by forcing viruses to go through many replication cycles and infection cycles rapidly. You’re suggesting doing the exact same thing to hundreds of millions of people in just this country.

 

[colfax_m]

Once people are infected, they no longer are capable of being hosts any more at all.

Unless a variant is generated that evades the immune response.

Which is exactly what’s going to happen with your strategy.

 

[Rigby5]

The faster you accelerate infections, the fewer variants become possible because there is no time.

As noted earlier.

Rigby is a nutcase

NO .... NONE ....reputable virologists agree with that nonsense

Wrong.
There is no one with ANY knowledge of biology who disagrees with me.
Evolution requires slow changes from generation to generation, over long periods of time.
Fast infection rates are parallel fan out of the same generation, and allows for the least amount of evolution because the faster you accelerate the infection rate, the sooner you use up all the easy hosts and end the epidemic with herd immunity.
You get the most variants when you flatten the curve, slow down the infection rate, conserve hosts, and keep the epidemic around for the longest possible time, allowing for the greatest number of new generations.

Evolution is only about the number of generations, not the number of reproductions.
If one parent has millions of offspring, there can be no evolution.
But if a parent has 1 offspring, and you do that for a million generations, THEN you get evolution.

 

[Rigby5]

The faster you accelerate infections, the fewer variants become possible because there is no time.

It doesn’t need time. It needs replications and infections.

The faster you accelerate infections, the faster you accumulate variants.

In a lab, you can induce evolution and create variants by forcing viruses to go through many replication cycles and infection cycles rapidly. You’re suggesting doing the exact same thing to hundreds of millions of people in just this country.

Wrong.
If you cause a million replications of the same original RNA, there is NO evolution because the replications happened in parallel, at the same time, and there can be no significant genetic change in one generation.

You can not "force" viruses to go through replication cycles.
They happen at a fairly fixed rate, and you can't speed them up.
You can slow them down, but that is irrelevant to the discussion.

To cause evolution you need to increase the number of generations in series, not the number of infections or offspring in parallel. And that is simply a matter of time. The longer any epidemic is kept around, the more it will evolve variants.
The early peak when the infection rate is at its highest, does not at all allow for any evolution because there are not enough generations. It happens too quickly for that.

 

[Lesh]

Wrong.
There is no one with ANY knowledge of biology who disagrees with me.

Wordy bullshit in no way replaces actual links. WHO "agrees with you"?

 

[Rigby5]

Once people are infected, they no longer are capable of being hosts any more at all.

Unless a variant is generated that evades the immune response.

Which is exactly what’s going to happen with your strategy.

Wrong.
The whole point of herd immunity is to wipe out the virus BEFORE it has had time to evolve new variants.
Evolution is slow.
Very little can happen at any one generations.
It takes millions of generations, and each generation takes a minimal amount of time.

Variolation of millions of deliberate infections all at once, is only a single generation.
There then can be NO evolution at all in that short time period.

The faster you end any epidemic, the better.
Never try to "flatten the curve".
That can ever do any good.
The epidemic is still going to be around until the percent immune reaches the same herd immunity amount.
So all you do by flattening the curve is to increase the time the virus survives, which then increases the number of serial generations, which then maximizes the amount of evolution.
The quicker you end any epidemic, by increasing the infection rate, you reduce the number of generations needed to achieve the same herd immunity amount, so you minimize evolution.

This is basic science of biology, and there can be no alternative interpretation.

 

[Lesh]

The whole point of herd immunity is to wipe out the virus BEFORE it has had time to evolve new variants.
Evolution is slow.

Evolution is slow?

Then why did we have different strains of covid coming from Europe as opposed to the original that hit the West Coast?

That strain evolved in just weeks.

We have had numerous variants evolve since then.

Your claims are a theory looking for facts. It don't work that way

 

[Rigby5]

Wrong.
There is no one with ANY knowledge of biology who disagrees with me.

Wordy bullshit in no way replaces actual links. WHO "agrees with you"?

How do you expect to find a link for something so basic and obvious?

The faster you achieve herd immunity, the fewer generations, so then the less evolution.

There is no reason why herd immunity could not easily be achieved in a single generation, thus preventing any evolution at all.

 

[Rigby5]

The whole point of herd immunity is to wipe out the virus BEFORE it has had time to evolve new variants.
Evolution is slow.

Evolution is slow?

Then why did we have different strains of covid coming from Europe as opposed to the original that hit the West Coast?

That strain evolved in just weeks.

We have had numerous variants evolve since then.

Your claims are a theory looking for facts. It don't work that way

Wrong.
The original infection from bats likely already contained multiple strains, and what we are seeing now is just a change in their dominant ratios.
But even if we assume these variants are new, they had over a year to evolve.
They did NOT at all evolve in "just weeks".

It is obvious.
There will always be long existing variants.
As the immune systems get better at identifying the dominant strain, then they will be able to reproduce less, and then variants that the immune systems are less capable of identifying will start to take over because there will be less competition from the dominant strain, for hosts.

 

[jbrownson0831]

Remember when that was one of the WH talking points in the early stages of the pandemic? No reason to panic. COVID will go away when the weather gets warm. It's all under control.

Turns out, they were wrong..........in too many ways to discuss. One of the more demonstrably provable things they were wrong about was the comparison to the flu.

We wiped out the flu this year. Could we do it again?

That's what happens to influenza type viruses when people wear masks and practice social distancing. Unfortunately, COVID is a highly transmissible virus. More so than the regular flu.

The point being the COVID protocols dismissed as ineffective, infringements on freedom, a waste of time by conservatives.........they work. And if we had not implemented them, if we had not locked down the economy for a while, the infection rate and death toll would be far worse than it is.

And now ole Pinochijoe is working on 200k kills in just over 2 months a new record!

 

[Likkmee]

Wow, what a miracle!

Not really. Lower flu cases comes as a direct result of less social interaction and safety measures taken when people are in public. The things that prevented COVID from being far worse. The things conservatives referred to as infringements on their freedom. What the exact numbers would have looked like if Trump's top adviser, Scott Atlas, had his way are obviously hard to determine. But we can say there would be millions dead not hundreds of thousands.

But think how much $$ the refrigerated trucks could make in storage fees !